Admiral Allen Statement on Completion of Relief Well

The following is a statement from Admiral Allen on the Successful Completion of the Relief Well:

"After months of extensive operations planning and execution under the direction and authority of the U.S. government science and engineering teams, BP has successfully completed the relief well by intersecting and cementing the well nearly 18,000 feet below the surface.  With this development, which has been confirmed by the Department of the Interior's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, we can finally announce that the Macondo 252 well is effectively dead.  Additional regulatory steps will be undertaken but we can now state, definitively, that the Macondo well poses no continuing threat to the Gulf of Mexico.  From the beginning, this response has been driven by the best science and engineering available.  We insisted that BP develop robust redundancy measures to ensure that each step was part of a deliberate plan, driven by science, minimizing risk to ensure we did not inflict additional harm in our efforts to kill the well.  I commend the response personnel, both from the government and private sectors, for seeing this vital procedure through to the end.  And although the well is now dead, we remain committed to continue aggressive efforts to clean up any additional oil we may see going forward."

The cement pressure test on the DDIII relief well was completed at 5:54 a.m. CDT. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement has confirmed that the cementing operation on the Macondo well was successful, that the well has been permanently sealed with cement plugs, and that pressure tests verify the integrity of the plugs. Oversight of the well now transitions from the National Incident Command to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement under the process laid out in the National Response Framework. The Department of the Interior and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement will oversee the continuing decommissioning of the Macondo well and its associated relief wells.